April 14, 2010

released in 1978 as an 8MM film and a glossy magazine, Desert Fox was made by Halsted after he and Mike Morris worked together on Joe Gage’s El Paso Wrecking Corp. in 1977. Halsted had formed a production company, Cosco Studios, with his partner Joey Yale in the mid 1970’s, and by this time were in full swing with 8MM films and magazines you could order through mail order in the back of many of our favorite magazines at the time – Honcho, In Touch, and others. As far as I can tell, this is one of only 3 films Mike Morris ever made – the 3rd being a COLT film, Summit Meeting, made with Paul Storr – you can also see the pair in the COLT magazine, MANPOWER! #8.

Click one of the pics to view the movie trailer (you know that if you view the clip in the browser, you can “right click” and view it FULL SCREEN, right?), or here if you want to download and save for later.

Another no-sex scene, BUT, this is an important scene – missing from the DVD, this is the first 5 minutes of the infamously missing Fred Halsted, the BOY and His Dad scene. Richard Locke (Hank) and Fred Halsted (Gene) have just been hired to work at the Wrecking Corp, and the foreman instinctively feels threatened by Halsted, and a fight ensues. Gene wins, the foreman (Stan Braddock – let’s discuss his t-shirt later) is fired and Gene replaces him – and as Mike Morris (in the only known speaking part on film I know of for Morris) says: “He’s all yours” – setting up the seduction of Morris’s son Jared Benson by Halsted. (Or is it Benson who seduces Halsted?) Now of course the other reason this scene is important is that if you own the DVD version, which jumps from The Gardener and the Rug Man scene which takes place as Locke and Halsted just arrive in El Paso – to the Orgy Finale. If you didn’t know the pair were now working at the Wrecking Corp., you’d be scratching your head wondering why they are suddenly having orgies in buildings that keep getting torn down, right? Right? You were paying attention to the developing plot, right?

“There ain’t a horse that can’t be rode, nor a cowboy that can’t be thowed.” (don’t ya love Richard Locke?)

a collection of “loops” filmed by Fred Halsted around the same time as Pieces of Eight (one loop, Desert Fox with Mike Morris & Dave Daniels is actually in both videos), and put together in this collection. The other loops are California Lineman 1 & 2 and Legend of Big Meat – a Steve Warren (AKA Johnny Harden) solo. I find it interesting that in this trailer, they show neither Johnny Harden nor Mike Morris, who were certainly bigger names at the time (and since) than Dan Pace, and certainly skinny Chuck Grady and balding (and hot) Don Edwards who never appeared in any other films.

and then check out the box cover art from HIS VIDEO:

quite common at the time, but exceedingly annoying nonetheless, was the habit of putting models on the box covers who weren’t in the video! the front cover, who the f*ck is that? I don’t care, and I am in fact glad he’s not in this video – but if I did like that type, I’d be disappointed to not find him there. The back cover? That’s super hot Jason Steele’s back – who is nowhere in sight in this video (look at the front cover box for HIS Video’s release of Joe Gage’s Kansas City Trucking Co. – again, Jason Steele! who’s not in that film either!) really really annoying.

note: The 4 loops only total about 40 minutes running time, so the HIS Video version has added in trailers for:Pleasure Beach, FALCONHEAD II, Caribbean Cruising, and Kenneth Holloway’s The Spirit Is Willing to the tape. The earlier video release by COSCO/ VCA has trailers for The Boys of Venice, Morning, Noon & Night, Jocks, Kip Noll & the Westside Boys, and Bad Bad Boys

OK, so first, I promise I’ll post the full 10-minute scene later this week – but, just so you know, my initial plan was just to post the last 2 minutes, after the sex is over, since for me, at age 18 or whatever I was when I first saw this on the big screen at the Bijou Theater, it was the confrontation with the homophobe, and Fred Halsted tossing him through a window, that grabbed me. My heroes might suck cock, but they weren’t sissies! And with the critical 30 seconds of the scene missing from the later VHS versions, and now the DVD, this very important point in the film would be lost for the ages!

Anyway, the basic background for the scene: The two protagonists stop in Billie’s bar. Gene, (Fred Halsted) never the one to pass a challenge, takes Will (Steve King) and his girlfriend Kay (Jeanne Marie Marchaud) down to the basement for a demonstration of man to man sex. The men have oral sex while she masturbates as she watches. Meanwhile, some homophobe is making some remarks as Locke is leaning against the bar. Halsted returns (with a big grin), but can’t believe what he’s hearing, the homophobe starts to grab Halsted, Billie (Georgina Spelvin) shouts (to Halsted) “Now Gene, you put him down” there’s a camera shot of the window, then she exclaims “Not there!”, and you see this body flung through the window! Much of the aftersex bar scene is chopped/missing from later tapes and the current DVD version.

But then last night, while I’m re watching the scene trying to decide how much to snag, it was this part here that grabbed me, this very “unlike Joe Gage scene” in a Joe Gage film. If you’ve seen a lot of his stuff, you realize that he’s not so much into gay sex as he’s into men having sex with each other. I think the no kissing thing is even more present in his more recent movies, perhaps with all the modern porn models having gay tattoos, thong tan-lines, etc., it remains the only way to show notgay man-on-man sex. But here, the kissing is critical – not just because it’s sensual, and hot, and Fred Halsted’s laid back sexiness is sooooo thick throughout the film, but because here, it’s not enough for Fred’s character to have sex with the married man while he wife watches – that’s not enough of a conquest – it has to be gay sex, with nice, sensual tongues going at it.

well, at least that’s the way I see it – click on one of the pics to view the scene.